Need to see if your shared folder is taking up space on your dropbox 👨‍💻? Find out how to check here.

Forum Discussion

ppucci's avatar
ppucci
Explorer | Level 4
8 years ago
Solved

Saving files from iPhone browser changes name to "File date" format

Hi, I have been experiencing this for a while. Whenever I export folks from Safari or Chrome on iOS 12.0.1 (Dropbox 118.2.2) the for gets its name changed to something like "File 2018 10 31 2359" (dat...
Export
Mobile
  • DavidZ's avatar
    DavidZ
    8 years ago

    It looks like something changed in iOS 12, as this works on iOS 11.4. You can work around this by choosing "Copy to Dropbox" (in the first row of the share sheet -- scroll to the right of Add to Notes, etc), which preserves the file name.

Jay's avatar
Jay
Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
8 years ago
Hi there, could you clarify if by ‘exporting’ you mean downloading the files from Safari or Chrome?
 
As the iPhone doesn’t have a native file system to save files directly, unlike Android, you need to save it to an alternative location. Were you saving it directly to the Dropbox app, or another third party app?
 
Please could you describe the exact steps you were taking, so we can assist further!
  • ppucci's avatar
    ppucci
    Explorer | Level 4
    8 years ago

    Hi Jay!

    On Safari on the iPhone, for example, I click on a .torrent file to save it to my dropbox (my torrent client on my PC monitors this folder and downloads whatever I save there). So I click on the torrent link and it gives me a "Open in..." prompt. I click on "More" and there's a "Save to Dropbox" option.

    Clicking this option asks me for the location and the name of the file, but the name used to be inherited from the original filename. Now it uses a "File day-month-year hour minte second" format, as per the attached screenshots.

     

     

    • Jay's avatar
      Jay
      Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
      8 years ago
      Thanks for the explanation, when you open the file (and rename it to .torrent) does it verify as an actual torrent file?
       
      It’s possible that this is new behavior in Safari, since when you tap ‘Save to Dropbox’, it could be saving as an unknown filetype, hence the date and time stamps. 
       
      Could you try and open that same link in Chrome, or another browser, and see if the same issue occurs?

About View, download, and export

Node avatar for View, download, and export
Need support with viewing, downloading, and exporting files and folders from your Dropbox account? Find help from the Dropbox Community.

The Dropbox Community team is active from Monday to Friday. We try to respond to you as soon as we can, usually within 2 hours.

If you need more help you can view your support options (expected response time for an email or ticket is 24 hours), or contact us on X, Facebook or Instagram.

For more info on available support options for your Dropbox plan, see this article.

If you found the answer to your question in this Community thread, please 'like' the post to say thanks and to let us know it was useful!